Thursday, January 24, 2013

The Glorious Buckinghams

Well
well well.. I wouldn't have thought the Buckinghams belong to the
sunshine pop genre. Although this is of course only what Wikipedia
states on the matter. I first started listening to the Buckinghams
due to last.fm recommendations. Their music can be described as
classic late 60s American pop music and it does sound a lot like sunshine
pop. There are definitely baroque pop elements, such as a strong
presence of horns.

Musically,
the Buckinghams could be placed somewhere between the Four Seasons
and the Beatles, with some sunny gentleness added to the mix. The
whole concept of one man singing lead and the rest of the guys doing
multipart harmonies resembles the Four Seasons concept quite a bit.
Carl Giammarese does a great job with the lead vocals. He may not
perform with a distinctive falsetto like Frankie Valli but there is a
lot of gentleness and bubblegum sound in Giammarese's voice. He also
gives nicely rocking performances when needed.

The
Buckinghams wanted to identify with the success of British Invasion
groups. Therefore they chose a British-sounding name, dressed up in
suits and even recorded music from the Beatles (I Call Your Name). They
had several hits in the States and their version of Mercy, Mercy,
Mercy was the most successful version of the song.

It
is cool that the the Buckinghams are still performing and sounding
really good. Giammarese and bassist Nick Fortuna were even recently featured on the big Happy
Together tours. I can't get enough of their music!

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What It Is All 'bout

In this blog a Finnish pop music fan blabs about music and albums she has recently found interesting and good, and music-related live experiences. A lot of that music can be labeled as sixties or seventies pop, classic rock, power pop, baroque pop, bubblegum pop, psychedelic pop/rock or alternative pop/rock. However, there are no boundaries, and there will occasionally be talk about jazz and classical music, for instance.

The point of this blog is sharing (and hopefully receiving) music tips, joyful experiences and personal opinions - not files. Feel free to comment on anything you'll find here.